So if You Think CNN is “Communist”, You Might be a Moron…

In recent weeks, I’ve tried to do a better job of reading and watching more content outside my “leftist” bubble. In the past, I used to do so quite often, as 1) it’s important to consider other opinions, 2) yes, you could learn something new, and 3) let’s face it, bias knows no boundaries on the political spectrum (I also should give a tip of the hat here to Adam Curtis’s “Hypernormalisation” documentary, which dives deep into the problem of digital bubbles).

Now, as anyone who has a steady diet of news is aware of, the media, namely the corporate media, has been relentlessly attacked by ole Donnie boy and his crew in recent months. The attacks on the media stepped up when multiple women came forth with their well documented accusations, and have continued as a result of Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. All this has prompted the ‘fake news’bit, which the Tan has been spewing, ad nauseam.

But, if your media diet is restricted to independent or corporate outlets, not of the really right variety, then you might not be aware of some of the current rhetoric regarding THE media…Some folks over yonder, are arguing that CNN, yes, get ready for it, is communist…

Yes, one of the planet’s biggest corporate media outlets, is in fact, not interested about making profits. Nope, they’re actually trying to destroy Trump and the Republican Party, in an effort to finally make the U.S. go red. As in commie red.

Now, unless I missed it, Wolf Blitzer hasn’t called for the abolition of private property, and Anderson Cooper hasn’t been pontificating about the differences between use value and exchange value. Jake Tapper hasn’t been explaining to viewers the finer points of historical materialism, although, it would be pretty awesome if he did.

The reality is that yes, many of the talking heads on CNN have been critical of Trump, and there’s good reason to believe that a lot of the folks at the outlet, are in fact liberal. But, and it’s a big BUT, they’re liberal in the contemporary sense. You know, people who believe in global warming, who have empathy for refugees, and don’t think the plight of America’s working class is the fault of immigrants. In addition, the company’s probably staffed with a lot of people who have gone all in on political correctness.

But, CNN certainly isn’t falling over itself to run stories on how we can end the neoliberal status-quo, by returning power to the citizenry, and establishing democracy in the workplace. By all measurements, CNN is a centrist, and many intellectuals would say, right of center outlet, particularly when it comes to economics. The CNN brass almost certainly isn’t interested in pushing for a world where, say, their compensation drops to just four times that of the average worker…

But the commie line is a tired, very, very played out shot from the right, which speaks more to the stunning ignorance those folks have about socialist theory and the left. Are there any sizeable groups on the left calling for Soviet or Maoist like, authoritarian regimes? Are there any notable, leftist intellectuals doing so? Nope. Quite the opposite. By applying this same logic, one could argue that all pro-capitalists are down with human rights atrocities, imperialism and fascism, since you know, capitalist nations have been guilty of all those.

The sad reality is that the political spectrum has shifted so right, as a result of the neoliberal age, that traditional leftist ideas rarely even enter the conversation. Bernie was a big exception, of course, and the corporate friendly, Democratic powers that be, did their best to shut that down.

So, when some far right clown tells his audience that CNN and global “elites” have a “socialist agenda”, sadly, far too many of them have no idea if its ‘fake news’ or not…